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Google Maps Flash API

The Google Maps API for Flash provides a new way to add interactive Google Maps to your website, using Adobe's Flash® plugin to display dynamic map content. This API lets Flex developers embed Google Maps in Flash applications. Similar to the JavaScript version, this ActionScript API provides a number of utilities for manipulating and adding content to maps through a variety of services, enabling you to embed robust, interactive maps applications on your website. The Google Maps API for Flash now supports 3D Maps. This API exists as a fully independent alternative to the existing JavaScript Maps API, and provides many of the features of that API while also adding the ability to mix Flash content with Google Maps.

Google has a lot of APIs, more than any other company we track. Perhaps as part of adding many APIs, the search giant also has to remove them from time to time. Recently the company has become more liberal in its platform pruning, with at least three separate announcements this year. Most recently Google dropped three more APIs, including the Google Buzz API.

It has been a long spell of “Operation Product Cleanup” at Google. Some of the high profile announcements like shutting down of the Google Translate API and the outrage have seen it being reframed as a paid version. Others, like Google Maps Flash, were not so lucky in the most recent round of API euthanasia.

When you want animated maps or zippier feedback than Google's JavaScript mapping API can provide, you can use the Flash Maps API. Yes, even Google acknowledges that its popular, full-featured platform can't do everything. Using the Flash API used to mean you needed to know Flash. Now, you can get the benefit, but still program in JavaScript.

The GeoDataSource™ Web Service REST API supports URI Query String/CRUD requests and JSON and XML formats as responses. It lookups for a city by using latitude and longitude coordinates, returning the...